• DeMar DeRozan scores 31 in return from injury
• Kyle Lowry makes Raptors history
• Toronto uses big second half to down Clippers
TORONTO — From the absolute vertex of the court, the Toronto Raptors shooting guard leaned back and watched his three-point attempt sail, hopping up and down on his left foot exactly six times as he faded towards the first row of courtside seats. His right leg was kicked out in front of him and as the ball fell perfectly through the hoop he held the pose for a quick beat and scowled before jogging back up the court. DeMar DeRozan was back.
Moments earlier, Kyle Lowry had wound the shot clock down to less than five seconds with one of his circuitous, dizzying drives that resulted in a dump-off to Lucas Nogueira just outside the left perimeter of the paint. The Raptors big-man took the pass, thought about attacking the rim for a swift moment, then saw DeRozan all alone beyond the three-point line and rifled him a pass that arrived with exactly 1.8 seconds left on the shot clock. DeRozan had only enough time to corral and fire.
And it was all the time he required to score three of his game-high 31 points Monday night, as the Raptors suddenly looked like their old selves again, shooting out the lights against a tired Los Angeles Clippers side and rolling to a 118-109 victory.
Monday, of course, was DeRozan’s first game in his team’s last five—and his second in their last nine after an aborted comeback attempt a week ago against Orlando. On Jan. 22 he badly sprained that same right ankle he was holding out in front of him after the three-pointer, and it took quite some time for the persistent swelling in it to subside.
And—surprise!—the Raptors struggled mightily over that span without their top scorer. They lost five of eight as part of a greater mid-season funk that left many wondering about the contender status of a team that seemed less than 30 days ago to be gliding turbulence-free toward a fourth-straight Atlantic Division championship.
But a glimmer of hope broke through the dark night after Raptors head coach Dwane Casey ran his team through a long, hard practice Saturday. DeRozan participated fully and woke up Sunday morning feeling no ill effects of the stress he’d put his ankle through. He took one more game off just to be sure—he was hardly needed in Sunday night’s dismantling of the tragically bad Brooklyn Nets—before suiting back up in earnest Monday night.
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And how did the ankle feel after nearly 40 minutes against the Clippers?
“Is that was it was?” DeRozan asked, professing to be unaware of his minute total. “Yeah, that wasn’t too bad. It felt great to be back out there competing with my guys, pulling out a victory—especially at home. I really had no problems. No pain, no nothing. Just a little winded in the last minute or two. But it felt good.”
And that has to sound good for everyone invested in this team’s fortunes as the Raptors looked to build some positive momentum against Los Angeles on the tail end of a back-to-back. Considering the Raptors have had mighty struggles against the NBA’s minnows of late, the 31-20 Clippers—even without the injured Chris Paul—presented a serious task. Add in the fact the Raptors were playing their fifth game in seven days and would again be without crucial rotation load-bearer Patrick Patterson, and things weren’t looking awfully promising coming into this one.
But a determined DeRozan—he said he found his spell on the sidelines motivating—was not having it.
[pullquote]”Sitting out, you kind of regain a certain hunger that you can lose track of when you’re out there playing,” DeRozan said.[/pullquote]
“It just gets you that hunger all over again. You want to get back out there to do what you were doing, but at an even higher level.”
It’s troubling to imagine what Monday’s loose, defence-free first quarter would have looked like for the Raptors without DeRozan around to pour in his first 13 points. The Raptors started slow in their own end, struggling to keep up with an endlessly cycling Clippers offence and allowing L.A. to hit six of its first eight shots. When the Raptors took their first timeout less than four minutes into the game, the Clippers already had a nine-point lead.
But after missing his first three attempts DeRozan started getting to work. Pivoting off a much-needed injection of energy from Nogeuira and centre Jonas Valanciunas, DeRozan’s shots began to fall and he found his way to the free-throw line seven times in the quarter, putting those early misses behind him with a steady string of buckets.
Once Lowry—who had an excellent start himself—finished his early shift, DeRozan dragged the Raptors through the end of the first, finishing it with a ringing put-back after Jakob Poeltl’s contested fast-break lay-up rimmed out. After trailing by double digits minutes earlier, the Raptors were finishing the opening frame up by four.
In the second, Lowry picked up where DeRozan left off, scoring a game-high eight in the quarter and hitting the 802nd three-pointer of his Raptors career, setting a new franchise record. Toronto’s defence continued to struggle to keep up with the Clippers, who went into the half shooting 49 per cent. But the Raptors offence was functioning about as well as it has in the last three weeks, pouring in 70 first-half points and earning a 10-point halftime lead.
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“It’s funny how things go,” Casey said. “You have so many talented young men but there’s still a pecking order. And guys know their rhythm with DeMar back in.”
The lead stretched to 15 by the end of the third as the Raptors continued to shoot over 50 per cent with four players in double-digits (the 97 points Toronto scored over three quarters was more than they put up in an entire game against Orlando on Friday). And although the Clippers won the fourth, the game was never at risk of slipping away from the Raptors, who maintained their distance and finished the job.
And that had to feel good for everyone playing and everyone watching. On the opposite end of a hellish schedule stretch, with their star player back in top form, and platforming off the momentum of two strong wins, the Raptors look like they’re in a genuinely good place for the first time in weeks. DeMar DeRozan is back. And did he even feel a hint of rust in his return?
“Nah,” DeRozan shrugged. “Did it look like it?”
